


Schild En Vriend

by leiascully



Category: The West Wing
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-05
Updated: 2009-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You never called."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Schild En Vriend

_For old times' sake - have a drink with me. My place._

_\- Sam_

Will finds the note on his desk. He stares at it for a long moment, savoring the elegant flourishes of Sam's half-familiar handwriting, and then shoves it into his desk drawer.

It's not a surprise when he finds himself in a taxi later. He presses the intercom button.

"Sam. It's me."

The door clicks open before he can even finish his sentence. He steps into a hallway with parquet flooring so shiny he can almost see himself. There is a huge mirror and a very discreet security camera. Sam has done well for himself in California to afford this place on his government salary. Will feels scruffy, suddenly, weary and scuffed. His shirt is wrinkled and probably damp under the arms. His cheeks have that faint gradient of stubble that's about all his face has ever managed to grow; it's nothing near rugged, manly five o' clock shadow, but more like a teenager's hope that that smudge is really a mustache _in progressio_. He sighs, smooths his tie, and takes the stairs up to the third floor.

Sam throws the door open. "Will!" Will is wrapped in a hug before he can do anything. "God, it's been too long."

"Yeah," Will says. "Yeah, it has."

"Come in!" Sam says. "Have a drink. Have two drinks. Do you want anything to eat?"

"I'm fine," Will says, his voice oddly faint to his own ears. "Uh, I'll take a drink."

Sam stops on his way to the liquor cabinet and looks at Will, really _looks_ at him in the way that only Sam can look at someone, so that Will feels both scrutinized and affirmed somehow, bathed in the warm glow of Sam's minute evaluation of his person.

 

"It's been a long day," Will says, though he doesn't know why he needs to excuse himself to Sam.

"Me too," Sam says. "And they're only gonna get longer. I tell you, Will, there are days I wish I hadn't come back."

"I imagine those'll be more and more frequent," Will says. He's still holding his coat and his bag.

"Yeah, but for now, I'm really glad," Sam says, beaming. "What kind of host am I? Let me take your coat." He strides back across the room, all Kennedy-esque youth and vigor, and Will wonders again how the fine people of California failed to elect this passionate, eloquent, beautiful man to the Senate, but that way lies madness, and other things he probably shouldn't be thinking about, especially when Sam is taking his coat away and there's no way for Will to hide the evidence of the things he wants that Sam will never be able to give him.

"You know, it's great, having seniority," Will babbles, "I don't have to carry a briefcase anymore, I've got this messenger bag instead, you know, goes across my shoulder, easier to schlep around. Not quite as sturdy, but I'm not the new guy anymore. They put it down to whimsy. I could get a bicycle, I guess, but it's muddy in the winter."

Sam smiles at him. "Will. Am I making you nervous?"

"No!" Will shakes his head. "Of course not. Why would you?"

Sam nods and looks away, clearly skeptical. "Why would I. What do you want to drink?"

"Whiskey?" Will asks.

"Straight? On the rocks?"

"Rocks," Will says, trying to sound decisive. "With a splash of soda." He holds his fingers up to measure. "You know, a big splash."

"Coming right up," Sam says. He crosses back to the liquor cabinet and busies himself with glasses and bottles, talking over his shoulder. "Have you had dinner?"

Will clears his throat. "I had a sandwich at the office earlier. I'm fine."

Sam brings the drink over; they clink glasses and sip.

"Oof," Will says. "I mean, it's good."

"God, I did miss you," Sam says. The corners of his eyes crinkle. "You never called."

"I was busy," Will says defensively. "You didn't either."

"I was busy," Sam teases.

"I mean, what would I have said anyway?" Will asks. "Thanks for giving up your amazing job so that I could have it? Thanks for leaving a hole I'll never fill? Thanks, now I get to endure weeks of olives in my pockets but it's all worth it because hearing him say my words is the greatest high on this planet?"

Sam leans forward and kisses him. It is both surprising and the most logical thing that could happen at this moment, and Will kisses him back. Sam tastes of whiskey around the edges, but mostly he tastes of hope and nostalgia, of dreams that come true.

"You're engaged," Will says, when he has control of his mouth again.

"I broke it off," Sam says. "Weeks ago. Before I came back. She didn't want to leave, and it was a lie. I've known that a long time."

"With her?"

"With most women," Sam says. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Will says. His brain is lagging behind the words Sam is saying, trying to catch up.

"I'm not gonna lie anymore," Sam says, looking intently at Will. "Not to you. Not to anyone."

"What were you lying to me about?" Will asks. He has lost the thread of the conversation somewhere, unable to look away from Sam's mouth.

"Everything," Sam says, and leans forward, and kisses him again.

The whiskey glasses sweat on Sam's nice end table but neither of them care, tangled up in Sam's very nice sheets.

"These are great," Will says, smoothing his hand over the covers, still breathing hard. It's a stupid thing to say, but it beats the declarations of fidelity and affection that are there somewhere in the back of his mouth, wanting to be said. He squints at his glasses, which are on Sam's nightstand. They look at home there.

"Something I learned from Laurie, actually," Sam says. "Never scrimp on bedding. You spend enough time there, you want your surroundings to be nice. Sleeping, I mean. Or, I guess, whatever."

"That was some pretty good whatever," Will says, shy like he's never done this before.

"Oh yeah," Sam breathes, his face lighting up again. It's a face Will wants to see on television, addressing the nation with earnest rhetoric, but it's even nicer right now to see it here, framed against the pillow and slightly blurry.

"When you said in your note to Toby that I was one of you," Will hesitates. "Did you mean...?"

"No!" Sam rolls up on one elbow. "I wouldn't do that. Besides, Toby's not...I mean, I don't think he...he's so in love with Andi that none of it matters." He kisses Will. "I just meant that you had a gift. He needed you. They all needed you."

"They wanted you," Will says. "I did too."

Sam smirks, looking very satisfied. "Took you long enough to say it."

"Not like that!" Will protests. "Well. Yeah. Like that. But the other way too. Having a gift...nobody likes the smartest kid in the class. I learned that a long time ago."

"President Bartlet said something like that once," Sam says thoughtfully. "We all thought that when he got re-elected, that pretty much proved him wrong." Sam pushes up on his elbow and gazes fondly down at Will. "I still remember the Thanksgiving we were dealing with Chinese immigrants, victims of religious persecution. We weren't certain as to their motives, so the president talked to them himself. He said he'd know if they weren't truthful, that their words would be a shibboleth. You know what that is?"

"Yeah, Sam, we read that part of your Bible," Will snips, and makes up for it with a kiss.

"I asked him about it later," Sam says, "to understand the decisions he made. He told me that faith was the true shibboleth. I had no idea what that meant until I saw you come out of that office built out of mattresses on a dead end campaign for a dead man, and I _knew_ that you belonged here. One of us. Gifted. Something more. Someone I needed in my life. Do you know how terrifying that is?"

"Yeah," Will says, putting his glasses on. "Yeah, I do. And it took me too long to get over it. I should have called."

"Shoulda coulda woulda," Sam says. "It wasn't your fault. I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say."

"Shibboleth," Will teases. "With a 'sh', just to make sure."

"Shush," Sam says, and kisses Will, and for now, at least, they understand each other perfectly.


End file.
